mUAr_cHEe’s Piece of River

[mUAr_cHEe]

28 degrees can grow most plants even mosses. Only cannot grow mini pelia and pelia. So should not worry too much. I assume you got double tap to disconnect chiller ? Or is it just connected to a pump ?

My tank went up to 29.7 when I got back from work on Wednesday.

My chiller is connected to my canister filter which have a quick-disconnect with a tap on it. But what I did was to off the chiller and let the water from the canister just run through it.

[fireblade]

my 2 feet tank is always running at 30 degrees... no chiller or fan added.. :P
marselia, japonica , MC and tennells is growing well :P so not much worries for you...

something to note.. hot air rises cold air sink... will you be drawing out cooler air instead of hot air? or you are blowing in cool air..

[mUAr_cHEe]

something to note.. hot air rises cold air sink... will you be drawing out cooler air instead of hot air? or you are blowing in cool air..

Thank you for pointing out. That was taken into consideration in my designs. I am now waiting for the results of further testing before posting more updates. Pls stay tuned. The results so far are satisfactory to me. I am just running more test for more reference points.

[mUAr_cHEe]

As a measurement and a reference point, I ran my equipment a day without the chiller running. The other things running would be my 2 Ecco Pro Canisters and a CO2 System. I can imagine that the other things potentially generating alot of heat would be the Ecco Pro Canisters. That being said, it was noted that the highest recorded temperature in the cabinet was 37.2℃. *Gulp*


As per previous posting, I have worked to find out and install the circulation fans to the best of my abilities to try to cool down the temperature in the cabinet. As you have seem in the previous post, this is what I tried at first. This was simple and I did not need to create more holes to the cabinet. I used some cable ties and tried to secure it to the vents.





This unforunately did not work out very well as the fans did not have sufficient room to take in air.The current vent dimensions are not big enough and most of the fan's intake surface area was obstructed by the 'grills'. My immediate solution was to actually place the circulation fan over the grills but with a spacing inbetween so that there is more space for the air to be drawn in. I am aware that there is a possibility for the cabinet air to be recycled but I suspect that more 'outside' air would only be pulled in this way. We can only confirm this with a wind tunnel test or maybe results from this experiment. This is what I did eventually.





Improvising with what stock of hardware I have at home, I got some wall plugs, cut it up and screwed it in together with the fan to the cabinet door, over the vents. This is a clearer picture of the fan installation.





The airflow improved alot and by 'hand-test', it felt like more air is drawn from outside the cupboard. Happy with the results so far, I continued and proceeded with the rest of my plan.





Two Intake Fans to draw fresh air into the cabinet.








Two Exhaust Fans Over the side slot to draw the heated air out.


As fireblade mentioned earlier, an important point of this design is that hot air rises, so note that the exhaust fans are placed at the highest possible point of the cabinet to drive out the heated air and the intake fans are placed at the lowest possible point to take in cooler air.


So far with this circulation fan system and chiller running, I recorded the highest temperature of 35.2℃ in the cabinet. For experiment sake, I ran the tank without the chiller switched on but with the fans swtiched on, the highest recorded temperature was 30.5℃. That is almost a 7℃ difference without the fans running!


I will be monitoring this for a while more before deciding if I should move the chiller out or not.

[jiajuen900]

Other than the eheim filters, the solenoid for the pressurized CO2 can get quite hot as well.

[hc rotala]

As seen here, 4 fans will generated enormous of noise and even worst is those 2 fan hangs on that cabinet door will cause even more noise due to the door is not firm fitting structure(even see here you have fit a cushion onto those fan’s holding screws). Not to mention they’re fix at full speed and constantly run unlike the chiller it only trigger by thermostat whereas the most of the time it'll only remain idle.

The most heat will build up is when the moment chiller is kick running thus the most efficient path to draw heat out is to put the fan exactly right behind the chiller as where the “air-flow” is when the condenser's fan is rotated. Positioning the fans upward is less helpful because of the distance and the gap is not available enough to smoothing the air-flow(chiller backside).

I think eventually chiller outside is the only best idea.

[Mystikboy]

If I may, I do think that having the fans inside will also contribute to the heat, and thus reduce their effectiveness.

[mUAr_cHEe]

Other than the eheim filters, the solenoid for the pressurized CO2 can get quite hot as well.

I touched mine and it did not felt so. Thank you for pointing out. I will keep an eye or actually a finger on it.

As seen here, 4 fans will generated enormous of noise and even worst is those 2 fan hangs on that cabinet door will cause even more noise due to the door is not firm fitting structure(even see here you have fit a cushion onto those fan’s holding screws). Not to mention they’re fix at full speed and constantly run unlike the chiller it only trigger by thermostat whereas the most of the time it'll only remain idle.

The most heat will build up is when the moment chiller is kick running thus the most efficient path to draw heat out is to put the fan exactly right behind the chiller as where the “air-flow” is when the condenser's fan is rotated. Positioning the fans upward is less helpful because of the distance and the gap is not available enough to smoothing the air-flow(chiller backside).

I think eventually chiller outside is the only best idea.

Thank you for your input.

Well, yes. Some noise is generated but I would not say that it is really 'enormous'. I do not think there is any difference in noise generated between the fans mounted on the cabinet and door. Both are equally noisy to my ears. I mounted both firmly onto the respective surfaces. Nothing is loose, so nothing is vibrating or jiggling our of control.

I did consider about installing thermostat-activated fans but that is on hold for a while. I got bigger problems. (Algae, coming school holidays and wife who is still looking for the mermaid.)

I agree with you that this is not the perfect solution to provide perfect circulation for the chiller. If given the choice, I would redo the whole cabinet or at least cut out the back of the cabinet to install circulations fans, exactly where the exhaust of the chiller is. But I disagree with you that what I have done so far is not helpful. I have managed to keep the working temperature of the cabinet below 35℃. I think this is still reasonable ambient temperature considering our climate. Most of the time, I have observed the ambient temperature of the tank to be between 29℃ to 31℃.

Moving the chiller out is one of the solutions but it is not one of the better solutions due to bigger reasons.

If I may, I do think that having the fans inside will also contribute to the heat, and thus reduce their effectiveness.

Of course you may! That is what this forum is about. As of now, the fans inside are effective and not contributing to the heat. I have used these fans before and stay generally cool. After all, these are designed to be installed in media cabinets to cool the devices down.


What I have done is a little lazy, cheapo and rash. I needed to quickly provide a cooling solution to my chiller problem since my tank is already running. Maybe I should have continue with DSM. I will work on an improved version once I have the time and done my research complete. In the mean time, I will just watch grass grow.

[fireblade]

something just cross my mind while reading all the suggestions and workarounds...

maybe can modify the fan outlet of the chiller and install an exhaust to an exhaust fan like this shown in the video? wonder will it spoil the chiller... or will it cool the inside of the cabinet more..

[mUAr_cHEe]

something just cross my mind while reading all the suggestions and workarounds...

maybe can modify the fan outlet of the chiller and install an exhaust to an exhaust fan like this shown in the video? wonder will it spoil the chiller... or will it cool the inside of the cabinet more..

This would definitely work and it did came across my mind before. But the issue is that I do not have a window or a secure 'exit' for my exhaust without compromising the safety of my home. I have seen a modification like this done before locally in Singapore. The thing to look out for here as well is to make sure that your exhaust is shielded from rain. Please keep this in mind should you attempt to do this in future.

[mUAr_cHEe]

Updates.



I switch to Operation: CoolerMaster. The previous set up was fine and it did a very good job providing forced ventilation to my cabinet. This is important once again since my chiller is located inside my cabinet. This is mostly for aesthetic purpose but then again, this would also help with general area-cleaning a lot. My wife would lag less if she has lesser things to clean. I am responsible for the general cleanliness of the tank, cabinet and everything inside. This is on top of my area assignment of the lavatories as well.



I installed a 200mm cooler fan at the door for the intake.




I maintain 120mm fans for the exhaust fans at the side slots.

After the previous circulation fans were installed, I seek to further improve my modifications towards perfection. As mentioned by hc rotala earlier, there is noise generated by the previous installed fans. I started researching better fans to install. Getting a lead from Allan Asis' thread, I did further research and came up with this solution. I still think there is room for improvement and I am working on it.

The fans are definitely lighter and this would assist in the longevity of the fan installation and cabinet. I also noticed that the PC fans are more powerful and will do a better job in ventilating.

In the mean time, let me enjoy my 'beng' cabinet. *Techno Music Cues in*

[Gavan]

never had so much fun reading a planted tank's diary before. thanks muar chee for adding much humour to AQ! subscribed! waiting for the elusive "river"..

[mUAr_cHEe]

never had so much fun reading a planted tank's diary before. thanks muar chee for adding much humour to AQ! subscribed! waiting for the elusive "river"..

It is my pleasure. I thank you for your appreciation.

The 'river' is coming along fine. I think. But it looking less like a river and more of an algae forest now.


This photo was taken during the starting of the 'New-Tank-Syndrome' or 'Algae Outbreak'.

Will be posting updates when the tank is in a better shape.

[Donut the Donkey]

Looking great! Definitely staying tuned.

[zhou yuande]

Hi bro mUAr_cHEe, would you mind if you pm me the price of your cool master fan and where you bought it? Thanks

[mUAr_cHEe]

It was quite an exciting week so far. Cycling is complete and algae is rampant. So it is time for some updates. At this point of time, I just like to state that I am not proud of my tank so far but I just want to share my troubles with all to reassure all that you are not alone. Even I am an algae farmer (like my idol). I do hope my tank will turn out beautiful eventually (like my idol).



These are the clams that did not burrow under the substrate. Yes. Check out the algae. Awesome, right?


One of the ten Otocinclus Macrospilus (SAE/Otos) that I got. They actually did a good job clearing the algae on the glass walls and on the drift woods. But I did not need them to clear the algae on the drift wood.
If you noticed some white spots in the sand, those are the spots where the burrowed clams are.


This is the 'before' picture before I got the main body of the 'clean-up crew'. Yes. Check out the algae bloom. I am mortal too.


This is the 'after' picture one day after I introduce one hundred and ten Neocaridina Davidi (Cherry Shrimp) into the tank. No more algae! But oh yes, check out the bacteria bloom. I am mortal too.

I hope it will clear up soon.

Full flora and fauna list will be posted next. I am still trying to ID one more plant.

[mercur1al]

Looking awesome!!!! When i grow up i want to be just like you and UA! :P

[mUAr_cHEe]

Looking awesome!!!! When i grow up i want to be just like you and UA! :P

Thank you. I am not sure about 'growing up' maybe sideways if you have my super powers: eat one char siew and the pants explode.

[mercur1al]

Trust me, i have grown too much sideways... That needs to stop...

[Gavan]

One hundred and ten rcs.

Ok.